Australian science will have its fastest supercomputer this week.

A new NEC SX-5 supercomputer will be installed in Melbourne and used by climate researchers, weather forecasters, drug designers, polymer chemists and atmospheric scientists from CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology.

Researchers are also exploring the potential to use it to help emergency services planners and organisers of outdoor events such as cricket matches or the Olympic rowing.

"The new supercomputer's increased power and speed will allow more accurate, localised forecasting of short-term and city-scale weather events," says Dr Rob Bell of CSIRO.

"This could, for example, give people monitoring tropical cyclones more detailed information about the cyclone's approach so that they can better protect homes and human lives."

The new supercomputer will be installed in the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO's joint supercomputing facility, the High Performance Computing and Communications Centre(HPCCC), in Melbourne by a team of visiting experts from NEC in Tokyo.

The centre's upgrade will put Australian researchers and forecasters at the forefront of supercomputer users in the world.

"This new supercomputer continues CSIRO's fifty year involvement in providing Australians with sophisticated scientific computing capability," Dr Bell says.

"The SX-5 model is the latest, most powerful supercomputer from NEC," says Mr Steve Munro, manager of the HPCCC.

"It has 128 gigabytes of memory. That's a thousand times more than a very good desktop computer, and 16 times more than the supercomputer we use now. And its processors are four times faster than the present ones too."

"The SX-5 could do in an hour what a high-end personal computer would take weeks or months to do," Mr Munro says. "And some of the problems the SX-5 can do are so big, a PC couldn't do them at all."

The new supercomputer is also lighter than its predecessor.

"That's a real bonus," says Rob Bell of CSIRO. "When the present 14 tonne SX-4 was delivered, it had to be hoisted up into our Lonsdale St building with a crane. The floor had to be strengthened before it went in. The SX-5 was taken up in the lift."

The new supercomputer will be used from early 2000 by staff at CSIRO and the Bureau.

The increased power of the new SX-5 will enable the Bureau and CSIRO to model atmospheric processes in far greater detail and accuracy than before, leading to more accurate modelling of both short-term and city-scale weather events and of long-term seasonal variability, including greenhouse-induced climate change.

It will also boost co-operative investigations into the complex ocean-atmosphere interactions, and into air quality forecasting and pollutant dispersion studies.

The new supercomputer will allow Australia to better stay in touch with major overseas weather centres.

As well as weather and climate applications, the SX-5 will be used for research such as designing pharmaceuticals and financial applications.

Photography of the new supercomputer can be arranged by calling Steve Munro (see below).

More information:

Dr Rob Bell, 03 9669 8102 or 0428 108 333, e-mail: robert.bell@cmis.csiro.au

Steve Munro, 03 9669 8101 or 0417 515 813, e-mail: s.munro@bom.gov.au